Does Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle exist because we do not yet know enough about physics to make better predictions? Will we ever get around this limitation? - by Viktor T. Toth - Quora Question Review

This document contains a review of the answer by Viktor T.Toth on the question in Quora: "Does Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle exist because we do not yet know enough about physics to make better predictions? Will we ever get around this limitation?"
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• The text in italics is copied from the article.
  
• Immediate followed by some comments
  

Contents

• 1. Answer Review

Reflection

• Reflection 1 - Question Review

1. Answer Review

The uncertainty principle is not a limitation, nor is it a matter of knowledge. You cannot know something that does not exist. And in the quantum world, things like classical position or classical momentum truly do not exist. Rather, a quantum system is characterized by quantities that do not behave like numbers. They behave as a combination of many (often infinitely many) numbers.

When a quantum system interacts with something classical, such as an instrument, some of its properties will become numbers. But the way these quantities work, not all of them can be number-valued at the same time. So for instance, when a quantum system interacts with an instrument that measures its position (so that its position can, at that moment, be characterized by simple, ordinary numbers), its momentum cannot be in such a number-valued state at the same time.

I emphasize: it is not that we do not know the system's classical momentum when its classical position is being measured. It is not our inability to measure it. It truly does not exist.

This is what the math tells us, and it has been confirmed by countless clever experiments that have been designed to probe and validate the weird predictions of quantum physics. But, I stress, these predictions are weird only because of our expectations based on our intuition that results from our experiences in a classical world. Nature is under no obligation to cater to our expectations.

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